Component Commander. I can say that I believe, at least in recent years, Air Force component commanders have been properly responsive to their respective CINC's. In addition to my responsibilities as Commander of SAC, I also serve as Director of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff [JSTPS]. In this capacity I am charged with building the single integrated operational plan [SIOP] for employment of all three legs of the strategic triad-bombers, ICBM's and Navy SLRM's. The JSTPS includes members from all branches of the service as well as representatives from each of the unified CINC's with responsibility for nuclear operations. The result is a fully coordinated plan for strategic forces employment. Hence, I believe the proposal to create a separate unified command which would integrate the strategic forces and functions of SAC and the Navy is an unnecessary and duplicative step. The unity required to effectively direct the employment of our strategic assets already exists. Strategic direction of our nuclear forces currently flows clearly from the President, SECDEF, and JCS to the JSTPS. This direction provides the basis for formulating strategic employment plans.

I believe the current relationship and division of responsibilities between the Air Force secretariat and the Air Staff is beneficial to all parties. The Air Staff brings continually renewed operational and field expertise to the process. The Secretariat provides the required civilian oversight, a better interface with other DOD and Government agencies and a valuable additional viewpoint. As Vice Chief, responsible for the day-to-day direction of the Air Staff, I found the Secretariat and the Air Staff complementary, compatible, and effective.

Regarding Joint Service, the CJCS should certainly have full authority over the Joint Staff. Further, I believe we must ensure quality people in Joint Staff positions. However, effective JCS staff work demands up-to-date, in-depth expertise in force employment. That requires rotation at reasonable intervals back into service line assignments. The Air Force currently assigns high-quality officers to the Joint Staff. Therefore, I do not believe a specialized joint specialty will improve the quality of joint service officers.

As an overall view, I believe modest evolutionary changes could increase the effectiveness of the JCS. I also believe these organizational changes must not be at the expense of, nor put at risk, the effective day-to-day functioning of other elements within the Department of Defense.

Mr. NICHOLS. As commander, of course, of the Strategic Air Command, we look to you as having primary responsibility for the Nation's nuclear forces, with your SAC bombers and your other aircraft there, and I want to question you, particularly, about the CINC's. We have been told that the CINC's-and you are one of the more prominent ones-do not have sufficient authority to discharge their responsibilities. Do you agree with that?

General WELCH. No, I would not, Mr. Congressman. In my experience as a CINC I am well supported by the services; I am well supported by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and by the Joint Staff; and I personally have full authority to carry out those things that I am charged with doing.

Mr. NICHOLS. The committee heard General Rogers. I have not read his testimony, but I understand he had some very strong comments to say on this subject. Would you support increasing the CINC command authority to hire and fire subordinates?

General WELCH. Sir, I believe that the CINC's should have full operational authority over all the forces assigned to them. You must realize that in my case I have that authority.

Mr. NICHOLS. What about court martial jurisdiction?

General WELCH. I think that court martial jurisdiction belongs to the Services, Mr. Chairman, and the reason I believe that is because it is the responsibility of the Services to provide disciplined, effective fighting forces. In order to provide disciplined effective fighting forces, you must have court martial authority as well as all the other disciplinary authority.

Mr. NICHOLS. Did I understand you to say that you are supportive of authorizing the CINC to have an operating force budget for such matters as joint exercises, joint training, and command and control equipment?

General WELCH. I would agree with that. I would agree that it would be useful for the CINC to have full operational control of his forces. That, of course, stops short of what we call command authority over the discipline of those forces.

Mr. NICHOLS. You know, we have a bill before us that would create a joint subspecialty. That would be a career management path for officers who would then be able to spend half of their tours in joint billets. First, let me ask you: I do not read in your biography any Joint Staff duty that you had. Have you had any? General WELCH. No, I have not had any assignment that would meet the definition in the bill that you talked about.

I have had lots of joint experience.

Mr. NICHOLS. OK. A DOD witness has said that we really don't need any joint subspecialty, that all that's required is an additional skill identifier. I fail to understand the difference between "additional skill identifier" and a "subspecialty." Would you give us your views on that?

General WELCH. I am not sure

Mr. NICHOLS. I am not saying, in any way-I am not inferring that you tried to avoid staff duty. But we have heard so many people come before our subcommittee and say that staff duty at the Joint Staff is the "kiss of death," you know, "No way do I want this. I want to be a line officer; I want a command." They run from it like the plague. The idea for putting this proposal in there was to try to make staff duty a little more attractive and certainly to see that it not be a deterrent toward promotions, that promotions for able officers, whether they are in Joint Staff duty or whether they are on line duty with their blue-suit parent outfits, come as they are earned.

Would you comment on that issue?

General WELCH. Yes, sir.

At the outset, I am not sure that I can explain to you the difference between an identifier and a subspecialty. I think it is the specificity of the requirements in the bill that people have objection to. You mentioned that I do not have, by definition of that bill, a joint assignment anywhere in my record; and yet I was a forward air controller as a cáptain; as the planner at Tactical Air Command Headquarters and then Deputy for Operations, I was responsible for joint doctrine and joint planning and joint work with the Army Training and Doctrine Command [TRADOC]. In fact, I worked hand in hand with General Mahaffey at that time. I was a component commander for RDJTF [Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force]. I have served in innumerable joint exercises, and every day my job in Tactical Air Command was to think of better ways to support the Army. My point is, of course, that the definition of what kind of background experience gives you an understanding and a sympathy with joint matters is just too difficult to lend itself to what we would try to do in a piece of legislation.

Now, I certainly support making joint duty more attractive by competitive promotion, but I have a considerably different view

point about how one does that. I do not think that you can do that by deciding when an individual is a captain or a Navy lieutenant that he has the potential to be a great Joint Staff officer or to be a flag officer in the joint business, and, particularly, that he has the potential to be a CINC.

So, my fear is that if you try to impose that sort of limitation that early in an individual's career, you reduce the quality of joint staffs by limiting the officer population that you can draw from to create joint staffs. The way for the Chairman to influence promotions is to provide strong endorsements of those people that he would like to see promoted to flag rank, and I assure you that the SECDEF will have absolutely no difficulty in making known the importance of those endorsements, and promotion boards certainly will consider very favorably those kinds of endorsements. My point is, of course, that there are other, less traumatic ways to emphasize promotion of people who have succeeded in joint assignments that do much less damage-that do not do any damage to the overall promotion system.

Mr. NICHOLS. The Chair recognizes Mr. Spratt.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no questions.
Mr. NICHOLS. Mrs. Byron.

Mrs. BYRON. Thank you.

General Welch, it is good to see you again.

Let me touch on a question that concerns me over the authority that you have as a CINC to perform the assigned missions. Do you think that authority currently as constituted is adequate?

General WELCH. Well, I have to answer the question in two parts.

My authority is somewhat different than most CINC's, in that I am dual-hatted as a CINC and a component commander. Therefore, I obviously am satisfied with my authority over the component. I think for other CINC's where that is not the case that it would be useful to have a clear expression of the operational authority of the CINC over joint training and joint communications and those sorts of things that he needs to carry out his tasks. I would point out, though, that the most important thing to any CINC is effective, well-trained, disciplined fighting forces-and that has to be provided by the component commander.

Mrs. BYRON. How about budgetary authority?

General WELCH. I would not recommend that the CINC become involved in the day-to-day business of formulating a budget. That takes a large staff; that takes a lot of attention. I think it would detract from what he should be doing.

On the other hand, certainly, the CINC should have whatever access that he needs to the component budget formulation to influence that along the way, and the Air Force does provide that to our CINC's.

Mrs. BYRON. Do you think they should be allowed to have more streamlining of the chain of command? Or do you think that they should have more input on the organization?

General WELCH. I, of course, think the shorter the chain of command, the better off you are, and that a CINC who is responsible for a theater should have the authority to specify the command arrangements that he uses to carry out his mission in the theater.

Mrs. BYRON. Well, we are looking at an overall change in thewith the bill. What would happen if we had a Joint CINC Council to advise the JCS Chairman? Would that be a-you know, we start combining things and combining things and, you know, you get started, and it is hard to turn it off. Is that what we are going to be looking at next?

General WELCH. I think that would be a tragedy in that what we need is more clearly defined authority responsibility and accountability, not less. As long as the service chiefs are the active participants in the JCS, as long as they are responsible for the decisions and the deliberations and the implementation, then you have the individuals involved in the decision who have the authority and responsibility for providing the forces to implement those decisions. To create a separate body that has no such authority and no such responsibility simply as a group of supernumerary advisers, I think, would not serve the Chairman or the country well at all.

Mrs. BYRON. What would happen if we were to require a periodic review by the JCS Chairman of the worldwide Unified Command Plan that establishes the CINCs' missions and areas of responsibility?

General WELCH. Of course, my understanding of the process, is that we seldom go through that because it is so painful; but there are provisions to go through that process and open these

Mrs. BYRON. That is, the existing legislation is there to do that. General WELCH. There is an existing requirement to examine unified command plans, I think, every 2 years. I am not certain about the timeframe.

As I say, it is very painful to open a unified command plan, because it is a very complex, difficult process to get through, but there are currently provisions to do that. We are currently going through that process on Unified Space Command.

Mrs. BYRON. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions.
Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Lally.

Mr. LALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, one of the issues that has raised the most conflict among the witnesses here is the role of the proposed Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-and whether he should be the Acting Chairman. Yesterday, we had General Rogers, who made a very persuasive argument as to why the Deputy Chairman should be the Acting Chairman. What is your view on that subject?

General WELCH. My thinking, of course, is very much driven by my convictions that the Joint Chiefs, the service chiefs, need to be very intensely involved in all JCS deliberations and activities. The rotating chairmanship, which General Vessey initiated, has been a very effective device to increase the involvement and increase the activities of the service chiefs in the joint environment, and, in my opinion, has greatly increased the quality of that involvement. In fact, that is one of the things that General Vessey did that greatly increased the effectiveness of the JCS decisions under his tutelage. I would be extremely reluctant to see us give up that particular impact. I favor maintaining the continuing rotating chairmanship in the absence of the Chairman.

Now, I will confess that is a little bit different than the normal military organization. But we only have one JCS. So the fact that it

is different than other military organizations is not a primary consideration, in my opinion.

Mr. LALLY. Thank you, General.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. NICHOLS. Mr. Barrett.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Welch, you testified that you support making the Chairman the principal military advisor. In our House-passed bill, where we do that, we also indicate that the Chairman should himself seek advice from the unified commanders and from the other chiefs of service.

General WELCH. Yes.

Mr. BARRETT. I suppose that you agree with that also?
General WELCH. Yes.

Mr. BARRETT. But, in most cases, when there is time that he should seek advice, before he gives his own advice.

General WELCH. Well I agree. I agree the Chairman should be the principal adviser, but I also agree with the provisions that require that the other service chiefs' opinion, if they differ, be forwarded along with the Chairman's advice so that the best possible decision can be made. I find that the Chairman seeks the advice of the CINC's very regularly, certainly on strategic matters. I spend a lot of time in the JCS, and in my opinion, seeking that advice just happens. Whether or not it needs to be codified is another matter. Mr. BARRETT. I do not hold a particularly strong view about the Joint Commanders Council. But the JCS has made the point that the JCS should continue to be a corporate body and provide advice to the Chairman, so I do not understand why you make such a strong-have such strong opposition to the CINC's, as a corporate body, providing the same type of advice to the Chairman. You indicate that the service chiefs have certain responsibilities, and the Chairman should get their advice. Is it not true that the CINC's who would be responsible for fighting a war, have tremendous responsibilities, too? Why should they not have a voice like the service chiefs?

General WELCH. It is the matter of the corporateness of the body you are describing. The Joint Chiefs meet three times a week. They are together approximately 10 to 12 hours a week, at least. They discuss a wide variety of subjects every week, week after week, so they are a corporate body. They meet as a corporate body; they know each other as a corporate body.

I will see another CINC somewhere on the average of two or three times a year for a matter of maybe an hour and a half. So, the CINC's are not a corporate body. The CINC's are individuals who are responsible for individual forces or individual theaters, while the JCS is a corporate body that operates as a corporate body. It is a startling difference.

Mr. BARRETT. Yes, sir, but it seems to me that with modern telecommunications-teleconferencing-if this were a good idea, the fact that you are not physically together but three or four times a year would not be a major factor. You could have meetings from Omaha with other CINC's in their offices. It would cost some money, but if it were a good idea and if it were worth while, it could be done. So the question is not on, I think, physical contact,